As Seen in the BBJ: The Importance of Well-Built Home Page Part 1

The Importance of Well-Built Homepage: 10 Tips to Improve your Homepage’s Role in Lead Generation and Conversion (Part 1 Tips 1-5)

To obtain a positive ROI from your Web site, you need to drive qualified traffic to it, and then convert those visitors into qualified leads by having them complete a call to action, whether that’s downloading a document, registering for an event, asking to be contacted by a sales representative, signing up for an enewsletter, or signing up for a product demo. If the visitor leaves your Web site from the home page without responding to the call to action, potential revenue is lost.

To judge the effectiveness of your home page, look at your web statistics on a frequent basis. If you find that most visitors do not stay long or only look at the home page, then you can conclude that your home page is failing as a lead generation tool, meaning you’ll need to make changes to the content and layout of the page.

Here are eight things you can do to improve Web site lead generation and ROI via a well built home page.

One essential element is the page title. The page title is the text that appears in the blue bar above a Web site’s URL in a browser. Many people make the mistake of only having their company’s name in the page title or having their tag line or unpopular search phrases as the page title. For best organic results, the page title should not only contain the keywords that you want to be ranked for, but also be keywords that a visitor searching for your solution would actually use.

Second, make sure the keyword(s) for which you want to rank is included in a headline above the main body copy. Use H1 tags for this main heading, and H2 and H3 tags for the subheadings rather than images or straight text because the search engines rate H tag content as more important than other types of text.

A third consideration is the meta page description, which is the text that appears below your Web site’s title on a search results page. Think of the meta page description as free advertising.

Fourth, include a positioning statement. A positioning statement is important because it tells the visitor what you do and for whom, allowing the visitor to immediately determine whether your solutions are appropriate for their needs. If the positioning statement is unclear, there’s a good chance the home page will be the one and only page the visitor hits. Make sure it includes the right keyword.

Fifth, in terms of the page layout, make sure you place important content, such as the positioning statement, recent news and events, and especially a call to action, above the fold because many visitors don’t scroll down the page. A call to action will help you convert qualified visitors into qualified leads. To increase the number of conversions, put supporting language next to the call to action. Phrases such as “Here’s what you’ll learn in this Webinar” or “Here’s what others have said about our webinar series” will boost the conversion rate. In addition, the landing page (i.e., the page linked to from the call to action) should be only one link away from the home page and contain a form above the fold.

Here’s a home page that I really like – http://rackspace.com/. Some of the things they’re doing well include:

Keywords in the page title and in the h1 tag.

Meta description contains the keywords, is succinct and to the point <meta name=”description” content=”More than 100,000 businesses trust Rackspace with their hosting and cloud computing. Get cloud, managed and hybrid hosting all backed by Fanatical Support.” />

While a positioning statement isn’t apparent, I don’t think they need one in their case. The entire content on the home page is dedicated to what they do – web hosting.

They have plenty of calls to action on the page, so, although I do not have access to their analytics, I will assume that the home page has a very low bounce rate.

The page has great navigation because you can enter the site depending upon your need.

I would have liked to have seen an offer such as “sign up now and get your first month of hosting free”. I would have placed a snippet of the latest blog on the home page to (1) entice more people to read the blog and (2) provide fresh content. For example, cloud hosting is a huge topic now and a potential “game changer” when it comes to web hosting. I would have had a summary of a blog on cloud hosting, with a link to the blog.

Dean Dorazio is CEO & Co-Founder of Wakefly, an online marketing company founded in 2002 to help businesses transform their online presence. Due to his passion for online marketing, he has helped thousands of clients improve their online image through effective website development, lead generation tactics, and desire to automate their marketing process.